THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 57 



The parable may be thus unfolded. Her name 

 Nemesis doth plainly signify revenge or retribution, 

 her office and administration being, like a tribune of 

 the people, to hinder the constant and perpetual 

 felicity of happy men, and to interpose her word, 

 &quot; veto,&quot; I forbid the continuance of it ; that is, not only 

 to chastise insolency, but to intermix prosperity, 

 though harmless, and in a mean, with the vicissi 

 tudes of adversity, as if it were a custom, that no 

 mortal man should be admitted to the table of the 

 gods but for sport. Truly when I read that chapter, 

 wherein Caius Plinius hath collected his misfortunes 

 and miseries of Augustus Caesar, whom of all men I 

 thought the most happy, who had also a kind of art 

 to use and enjoy his fortune, and in whose mind might 

 be noted neither pride, nor lightness, nor niceness, 

 nor disorder, nor melancholy, as that he had ap 

 pointed a time to die of his own accord, I then deemed 

 this goddess to be great and powerful, to whose altar 

 so worthy a sacrifice as this was drawn. 



The parents of this goddess were Oceanus and 

 Nox, that is, the vicissitude of things and divine 

 judgement obscure and secret : for the alteration of 

 things are aptly represented by the sea, in respect 

 of the continual ebbing and flowing of it, and hidden 

 providence is well set forth by the night : for even 

 the nocturnal Nemesis, seeing human judgement 

 differs much from divine, was seriously observed by 

 the heathen. 



Virgil jneid. lib. 2. 



&quot; Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus, 



VOL. 3. F 



